the nfl to get its referees back to work. the question is, can the most popular league in the country afford to have this go on for another week? it's way too early for this. good morning. this is the show that snows are you anxious to have the real host back so you can get rid of this replacement. we're working on it. i'm glad you're up with us this morning. you can e-mail me as always or tweet me. i want to know what you're doing up at this hour. or text the word awake followed by your response to 622639. we'll read the best responses later in the show. the next 30 minutes will be your cram session for this wednesday, september 26th. a lot to tell you about including president obama speaking before the u.n.'s general assembly and warning iran that the time for diplomacy is, quote, not unlimited.

plus ann romney on leno last night telling jay about the thriftiness of her super rich husband. that clip later in the show. first let's get to the news live at 5:30 a.m. here at 30 rock in new york city. and we begin on the campaign trail where exactly one week out now from the first presidential debate. and there is brand new polling this morning from three key swing states that will raise major concerns inside the romney campaign. of likely voters, president obama now leads mitt romney by 10 percentage points in the state of ohio. that's a double digit lead in the state no republican has lost and then won the presidency. the president up nine points in florida. that is absolutely a must win state for romney. mr. obama now opening up a 12 point lead in pennsylvania according to this poll. that's a state, though, republicans have all but written off. those numbers echo polling from the "washington post" which gave the president an eight point advantage in ohio but put him up

only four points in the state of florida. ohio in particular shaping up as a critical battleground. mitt romney spending his third consecutive day there. president obama will be in the state this morning. today's "new york times" reporting that aides to mitt romney say the republican candidate and paul ryan will campaign together now much more often in the coming weeks. according to the report, the move underscores concerns that mr. romney is not generating enough excitement on his own and need mrs. ryan to fire up the supporters. that may have been evident as you'll see here during a campaign stop yesterday outside dayton, ohio. >> wow. that's quite a guy, isn't it? paul ryan. romney/ryan, romney/ryan, romney/ryan. there we go. that's great. thank you. >> meanwhile congressman ryan a big green bay packers fan vented

about that call on monday night football. went on to compare the nfl's replacement refs, yes, to the obama administration. >> i got to start off on something that was really troubling that occurred last night. did you watch that packer game last night? i mean, give me a break. i half think that these refs work part-time for the obama administration in the budget office. trying to pick the winners and losers and they don't even do that very well. unlike the seattle seahawks last night, we want to deserve this victory. >> vice president joe biden meanwhile has beenle holding mock debate sessions with chris van holland and campaigned yesterday in the state of virginia, keeping romney's comments about the 47% in his line of attack. >> he attacks the 47% of the american people who he says paid no federal taxes. and he attacks, he, romney,

attacking someone on taxes? woah. that's like me attacking someone for being passionate in politics. >> also yesterday here in new york city, president obama addressed the united nations. the general assembly there. the president strongly condemning the anti-islamic video that some say caused the unrest in the middle east, but he also says it did not justify the attack on the united states embassy. >> i know there are some who ask why don't we just ban such a video. and the answer is enshrined in our laws. our constitution protects the right to practice free speech. i accept that people are going to call me awful things every day. and i will always defend their right to do so. and we must agree, there is no speech that justifies mindless

violence. >> in the last couple of weeks, he pointed out those are probably not the result of a video and were coordinated. he also delivered in his remarks a stern warning to iran over its nuclear ambition. >> let me be clear. america wants to resolve this issue through diplomacy and we believe there is still time and space to do so. but that time is not unlimited. we respect the right of nations to access peaceful nuclear power. but one of the purposes of the united nations is to see that we harness that power for peace. make no mistake, a nuclear-armed iran is not a challenge that can be contained. it would threaten elimination of israel, the security of gulf nations, and the stability of the global economy. >> the white house came under some fire for not scheduling any face to face meetings with foreign leaders here in new york during the urn gener.n. general assembly.

the white house says he did meet briefly with the new president of yemen. but no major talks with other world leaders. today the general assembly will hear from iranian president mahmoud ahmadinejad for the first final before his office expires. a final deadline has come and gone that would have allowed todd akin to remove his name from the senate race in missouri. yesterday afternoon as the cut off approached, the man who made national headlines with his comments on legit mate rape kicked off a statewide bus tour and vowed to stay in the race.h comments on legit mate rape kicked off a statewide bus tour and vowed to stay in the race. >> over the period of the last number of weeks, a number of people have asked me, are you quitting? there are other people that want to replace you with someone else. i don't believe that that is really my decision. the decision was made by the voters of the state of missouri and i have one purpose going into november and that's replacing claire mccaskill.

>> the democratic opponent marked the deadline by launching a new tv ad, she had been holding on to these to make sure he was going to stay in the race. for the first time now, senator mccass still seizing on akin's remarks. >> todd akin. on march 18th, he said he didn't like social security. on september 3, todd said he wants to abolish the minimum wage. on april 21, said he would eliminate student loans. and on august 19, todd akin said onlyrain oigs are legitimate. what will he say next? >> recent polling in that state has senator mccaskill leading by about five points, but very close there in missouri. now to business. thousands of protesters clashed with riot police yesterday in madrid, enraged by austerity

measures and tax hikes that will be announced today for 2013. security forces blocking demonstrators trying to surround the parliament building. police firing rubber bullets in to the crowd at times beating protesters back with batons. let's get an early look at the markets with geoff cutmore live in london for us. good morning. >> hey, good morning to you. increasingly i think pictures from europe are going to look like demonstrations. this is the ugly side of austerity. we have the spanish out on the streets in madrid effectively protesting against further austerity. the budget announcement today expected to bring us further reductions in pension payments. new green taxes. and other attempts to raise revenue possibly through trading transactions on stocks. this is all about rajoy trying to find this 13 billion euros he

needs to save from the budget this year. and that budget target is slipping and the people don't like the austerity that's already coming down the pipeline. so it looks like things will get even tougher. and just keep your eye on greece today, as well, because we have a national strike in that country and we've already seen armored cars moving into the capital athens to prepare for possible discontent. so we continue to see politicians here wrestling with budgets, but the people not happy about the consequences. back to you. >> sounds like madrid's only the beginning. geoff cutmore live in london. thanks so much. still ahead, the nfl officiating disgrace that has moved from the sports pages to the front pages. after the packers lost the game two nights ago on a bad call made by replacement refs, players and fans and everybody says we have reached the breaking point. we'll have the latest ahead in sports. and stephen colbert considers a

statement made by mitt romney in the wake of his wife's emergency plane landing after the cabin filled with smoke, he believes airplane windows ought to roll down. that clip and a check on weather when "way too early" comes right back. bob, these projections... they're... optimistic.

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boring. boring. [ jack ] after lauren broke up with me, i went to the citi private pass page and decided to be...not boring. that's how i met marilyn... giada... really good. yes! [ jack ] ...and alicia. ♪ this girl is on fire [ male announcer ] use any citi card to get the benefits of private pass. more concerts, more events, more experiences. [ jack ] hey, who's boring now? [ male announcer ] get more access with the citi card. [ crowd cheering, mouse clicks ] a live picture of the united states capitol. let's get a check on your weather from bill karins. >> morning.

a little sad this morning. just been such a beautiful september, we've been spoiled. sunshine and dry. low humidity. and now the rain is returning. and it looks like a lot of the clouds will continue right into the upcoming weekend. people start getting the pull continues and apples and a lot of those fun things will have to dodge raindrops. as far as this morning right now in cleveland, rain moving in fp interstate 80 heading towards youngstown, rain for you. it won't last that long, but definitely bring the umbrella. many other areas of rain through the ohio valley, too. down around areas around cincinnati and lexington, also dealing with wet weather. so as far as the forecast goes, it won't rain all day. just on and off periods of rain. p we've already seen a little down through maryland and delaware, some showers have raced overnight through new england. the next shot of rain will probably be later today through areas of new york and d.c., more for the evening ride home than this morning.

but a lot of clouds out there, definitely not the sunshine and blue skies we've all gotten used to. also we have wet weather from kansas city through st. louis, southern illinois is once again dealing with stormy weather. and the southern portion of the country should be warm and dry. a strip from oklahoma right through the ohio river into new england that we'll be dealing with on and off wet weather. even through the upcoming weekend, a lot of us on the eastern seaboard will have to deal with clouds and on and off rain. >> sounds like a good morning to check with your airport before you get out. we turn to sports now. the new york papers. america's shame. and the front page of the new york "post," has a referee with a seeing eye dog. it's front page news. 70,000 or so voice mails flooded the office of the nfl after the

disputed call monday night gave the seahawks a win they shouldn't have had. on the heels of that call which followed a particularly problematic week, the nfl released a statement yesterday saying in part in is a broad agreement that the quality and consistency of officiating can and should be improved. how to accomplish that is a critical issue vatting the two sides in this negotiation. we are prepared to make reasonable economic compromising and we will invest more money in officiating as long as it ensures long term improvement. recent struggles have even begin the presidential candidates a little common ground. be in tweeted nfl fans on both sides of the aisle hope the lockout is settled soon. and romney weighed in later on cnn. >> what would you do about those referees in the nfl? would you order them back to work? >> i'd sure like to see some experienced referees with nfl experience come back out on to the playing fields. >> paul ryan called those refs

out today. are you glad he did that? >> that's just fine. paul was very angry that the green bay packers he believes won and the referees took it away from them. >> joining us by phone, sports editor from edge of sports.com, dave, thanks for waking up so early on this. >> great to be here. no worries. i didn't sleep. just stayed up, got the phone. >> that's the pressure of being on "way too early." you can't sleep at night. dave, walk through for the viewers who haven't followed this as closely as some of us deep in the sports world, what is at stake, why can't we just get the refs back to work? >> it's until believable. you see the fog over the issue on the cnn question that you aired where they asked mitt romney would you order them back to work. there is no ordering them back to work. they're not on strike. they are being locked out. that's the first thing to realize. the nfl owners have locked the doors to the stadiums from the nfl official referees. they cannot get in. they have offered to work while

negotiations take place. and what is separating them is a joke. this is a $9.3 billion a year business. and what it would cost to get the referees back to work would cost $62,000 per team per week. total cost, $3.3 million a year for a $9.3 billion a year business. they are not separated by economics. they are separated truly by ideology. and i mean the owners have decided that it is their way or the highway. and this lockout is a very drastic tactic for what frankly amounts to a few thousand dollars, what amounts to the amount that a typical nfl team would find between the cushions of its couch. >> i was going to say, they make more than that in beer and popcorn concessions every week. do you players have any recourse here? we saw some members of the packers now publicly coming out in radio interviews and tweets saying this is outrageous, we may have to do something dramatic like take a knee over

play and protest until they change this. what can the players do here? >> it's interesting because the players are the ones with the only power to end this here. like if i could organize 10 million fans to boycott the nfl, it wouldn't make a lick of difference because nfl owners have already banked money with public subsidies, luxury box and television money. so there is no real economic pressure from fans. but if only 64 players, the offensive and defensive captain of each team, held a press conference and said we are not going to take the field until this is settled, it would be settled faster than an r sgchlt 3 40-yard dash. >> well, let's hope so. appreciate you waking up early. to baseball now, the braves facing the marlins. ninth inning. braves down a man. present freddie freeman connects. braves win 4-3. and they clinch a spot in the

postseason. this comes a year after the braves terrible collapse. four of the five playoff spots in the national league now locked up with only that final wild card spot the yet to be determined. as and rangers, in the tenth, tied at two. gets all of this one in the upper deck. the solo home run proves the game winner. as now two games up on the an gels for the second a.l. wild card spot. orioles were shut out by the blue jays, but the yankees failed to extend their lead. they lost to the twins. yankees lead over the orioles remains 1 1/2 games in the division. coming up at the top of the hour on "morning joe," president obama widens the gap with mitt romney in new polling from three battleground states critical to the republican's chances. we'll kick around the red flag numbers. and when we come back here, we'll huddle around the water cooler to watch ann romney tell jay leno her husband is a cheap

skate.

we told you a new poll number out today shows president obama leading mitt romney in the swing states of pennsylvania, florida and ohio. gaining ground in ohio has been a focus of both campaigns this week. president obama releasing a new

ad there and romney holding public events throughout the state. if you want to sound smart, tell your friends mitt romney has outpaced president obama's fund-raising efforts in the state of ohio. over $6 million donations have gone to mitt romney, but as we showed you in the poll this morning, romney trailing by ten points now at least according to this poll in ohio. let's gather around the water cooler to watch ann romney sitting down with jay leno. mrs. romney shared some secrets of her 43 year marriage to mitt, including the thriftiness of a man worth an estimated quarter of a billion dollars. ? would you say he's frugal or cheap? >> cheap. >> cheap? really? >> yeah. do you want to know what he does when we leave the house? he turns off the hot water house. do you know wlae does -- >> he turns off the hot water heat sner. >> when we come back, he forgets that he's got to turn the hot

water heat other and he says cold showers are not that bad. >> talk about the significance of if he gets elected being the first mormon president. >> well, you know, i love the fact that we have the first african-american president, that that means to me that we're leaving prejudices behind. i would hope that if mitt were elected we would see more of the same. that prejudices are being left behind. >> i thought you said you'd like to see more of the first african-american president just to see -- >> no, get it right. >> if elected as first lady, what would your issues be? >> you know, of course ms, more awareness, breast cancer, more awareness. and if i have another disease between now and then, more awareness to that one. >> over the weekend, a private plane carrying mrs. romney had to make an emergency land manage denver after smoke was reported in the cabin. last night stephen colbert looked at mitt romney's reaction

to the incident. >> on saturday, ann romney's plane had to make an emergency landing after an electrical fire broke out on board. i'm happy to hear she's fine. mitt used in this close call to present a bold idea. >> when you have a fire in an aircraft, there's no place to go exactly. there's no -- and you can't find any oxygen to get in because the windows don't open. i don't know why they don't do that. but it's a real problem. >> it is a real problem. for one thin, it explains why burger king doesn't have a fly-through window. >> i would eat there about if they can it. still ahead, why are you awake? your cabin pressure tweets, texts and e-mails are next. does your phone give you all day battery life ?

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